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Tuesday, February 8, 2011

#144: Janice L. Gibson

AKA The EMT Empress (her own title!)

As a proponent of Energy Meridian Tapping (EMT), Janice Gibson locates herself in the fluffy far fringes of woo. She rose to some prominence when she offered and organized her services to the Haiti population after the disastrous earthquake (but her efforts were somewhat overshadowed by John Travolta’s offering of scientology ministers for more or less the same purpose, and by the Homeopaths Without Borders). Her technique seems to be related to Gary Craig’s version of Thought Field Therapy, Emotional Freedom Technique.

What is EMT? “Energy Meridian Tapping (EMT) is a user-friendly version of the long established meridian tapping modality called TFT (Thought Field Therapy). Energy tapping therapies have been well documented as significantly improving pain, impaired range of motion, stress, anxiety, phobias, physical symptoms and other health conditions. EMT's basic premise is that the underlying cause of every negative emotion and almost every physical symptom is a disruption of the body's energy flow along the same meridians that were mapped over 4,000 years ago by Chinese physicians.”

Look, this is heavy-duty, unhinged woo, and no – there has been no documentation. None. And we have encountered Thought Field Therapy before. It is serious bullshit.

Her press release for the occasion kinda got off on the wrong foot: “As nearly half the Haitian population has already or will be subject to life-saving amputations, tapping will be useful in helping these people on several fronts” … say what?

And yes, inevitably: “TFT even borrows some of its concepts from quantum physics. For instance, the idea of active information, in which small amounts of energy can affect large systems, is used to support the existence of perturbations.” Great.

Diagnosis: Well-intentioned idiot. There really is no other remotely accurate way to put it. Janice Gibson is heavily critical-thinking-challenged and wouldn’t recognize a legitimate scientific method if it hit her in the face. Woe the prevalence of failing to distinguish fact and reason from opinion and wishful thinking.